Mobile communication devices are becoming ubiquitous tools for personal, business, and social uses. While the main use for mobile communication devices likely remains communication, the processing power and storage of modern mobile communication devices continues to increase thereby allowing advance processing and data storage to occur on such devices. For example, many users of modern “smart phones” utilize those phones both for communication and as computer platforms for storing personal, business, and social data, and executing various software applications. The mobility of such communication devices provides the benefit of allowing a user's data to travel with the individual.
Contemporary motor vehicles often include extra controls to allow personal configuration of various features of the vehicle. Such controls may include ergonomic controls that allow a vehicle occupant to, for example, adjust the viewing angle of the side mirrors, modify the tilt of the steering wheel, position the seat in numerous directions, modify the height of the pedals, and/or control other ergonomic features of the motor vehicle that may improve the human-interfacing of the motor vehicle. Additionally, the extra controls may include comfort controls that allow the vehicle occupant to, for example, preset a number of radio stations, set climate control targets, adjust window positioning, set defaults or enter data to various electronic sub-systems (e.g., a navigation system) of the vehicle, and/or control other control features of the motor vehicle that may improve the comfort of the vehicle occupant. The extra controls may also include mechanical controls that allow the vehicle occupant to, for example, modify the power mapping of an engine of the vehicle, adjust the shift schedule of a transmission of the vehicle, select a performance mode of the vehicle, and/or other mechanical features of the motor vehicle that may adjust or modify the performance or operational state of the vehicle.
Generally, a vehicle occupant must interface with the various controls via a switch, button, knob, touch screen, or other physical input device of the vehicle. As such, the vehicle occupant must first enter the vehicle and subsequently spend the time to adjust all of the various controls. Such manual adjustment can become cumbersome in those situations in which multiple drivers operate the vehicle at different times, which requires each driver (or passenger) to readjust the controls to their personal settings after every use of the vehicle by another driver (or passenger).